Prednisone is almost worse than the hives, but at least it's not 200mgs/day this time (I did that when the ITP flared--sometimes I felt sicker than before I was in hospital.) And there's a job fair coming up so maybe I can get a job walking distance at the new casino where I won't feel like my boss hates me and I have to sell out everything I ever knew about food safety to keep a job...

Prednisone is almost worse than the hives, but at least it's not 200mgs/day this time (I did that when the ITP flared--sometimes I felt sicker than before I was in hospital.) And there's a job fair coming up so maybe I can get a job walking distance at the new casino where I won't feel like my boss hates me and I have to sell out everything I ever knew about food safety to keep a job...

Click to expand...

I'll keep my fingers crossed.

If there's any justice *after you get a new job* your boss will get found out and shut down. What you described is really scary and, to be honest, a little surprising. I guess I'm naive. Or maybe I've been lucky. Where I work, there's a cafeteria that's bigger than many restaurants. I could give lots of boring examples, but suffice it to say that it's obvious that food safety is a top priority for them. The rules are there for a reason. It amazes me that there are people out there who blatantly ignore the rules and get away with it. Blech.

nurdrms, CONGRATS, and I love the mere thought of a blue lawn! lol.
sidenote: The Air Force Academy venues are marvelous...although...I don't know of any catering service that does not do set up and tear-down inclusive of garage removal. Could be a regional location thing.
That said, ENJOY every moment,,,,savor the photos and stories....and, as well, you may want to cut a piece of the Blue Tulle for a scapebook so you can laugh later at how it came to be.
Yesterday - - started a new routine for my so called "at home" life. Difficult to do when 70% of my time retired so far has been traveling! lol.
Call from ex-co/worker who drove me nuts and to distraction for 25 years.
Begging me to come downtown - there is something for me. NOPE, not doin' it.
Silence.
Lots of silence.
Former co-worker, "I'll come to you then"...then there is the hook "I'll meet you social dancing at >>>>>"
OK, your on. Met co-worker at social dance - she gave me a huge huge I meet huge poster sized envelope.
OH MY, a resolution signed by all Council Members and electeds and in print is my career. wow.
ok, so....maybe I should have driven in and attended Council to be awarded this,,,but we had way more
fun trying to Salsa dance and catching up with each other.
During that time, 4 people came up to me, all previous retirees, whom neither one of us knew at all, from the City....and inquired about the Resolution....and off we went....had a blast.
Up to step-dad's house, at his request - to bring groceries and such.
End up in screaming match with him the first five minutes in his house.
I knew it was coming, and he definately lit my match, but that's ok - Held my ground,,,,dug in my heels and did not give up or give in.
The other few hours with him were good.
He had snow in his front yard, which doesn't happen often and it was a nice change of pace.
DH calls, home from Charlotte, tired but quite happy from the experience.
Homeward, note new snow and that looney criminal is still on the loose with a million dollar reward - thoughts go to "he's probably not in the mountains anymore"...
Decide to go free-skiing this week after all the electronics arrive.
New snow, mid-week, no traffic....perfect....gotta make the plans.

nurdrms, CONGRATS, and I love the mere thought of a blue lawn! lol.
sidenote: The Air Force Academy venues are marvelous...although...I don't know of any catering service that does not do set up and tear-down inclusive of garage removal. Could be a regional location thing.
That said, ENJOY every moment,,,,savor the photos and stories....and, as well, you may want to cut a piece of the Blue Tulle for a scapebook so you can laugh later at how it came to be.
Yesterday - - started a new routine for my so called "at home" life. Difficult to do when 70% of my time retired so far has been traveling! lol.
Call from ex-co/worker who drove me nuts and to distraction for 25 years.
Begging me to come downtown - there is something for me. NOPE, not doin' it.
Silence.
Lots of silence.
Former co-worker, "I'll come to you then"...then there is the hook "I'll meet you social dancing at >>>>>"
OK, your on. Met co-worker at social dance - she gave me a huge huge I meet huge poster sized envelope.
OH MY, a resolution signed by all Council Members and electeds and in print is my career. wow.
ok, so....maybe I should have driven in and attended Council to be awarded this,,,but we had way more
fun trying to Salsa dance and catching up with each other.
During that time, 4 people came up to me, all previous retirees, whom neither one of us knew at all, from the City....and inquired about the Resolution....and off we went....had a blast.
Up to step-dad's house, at his request - to bring groceries and such.
End up in screaming match with him the first five minutes in his house.
I knew it was coming, and he definately lit my match, but that's ok - Held my ground,,,,dug in my heels and did not give up or give in.
The other few hours with him were good.
He had snow in his front yard, which doesn't happen often and it was a nice change of pace.
DH calls, home from Charlotte, tired but quite happy from the experience.
Homeward, note new snow and that looney criminal is still on the loose with a million dollar reward - thoughts go to "he's probably not in the mountains anymore"...
Decide to go free-skiing this week after all the electronics arrive.
New snow, mid-week, no traffic....perfect....gotta make the plans.

My fear is that the "looney criminal" will either stay at large for a long time (a possibility if he has any intelligence training) or that, when he's finally being caught, more innocent people will die. *sigh* What a world.

Yesterday: Random household stuff. Clean up giant, giant mess that I made over the weekend. As I'm cleaning, it occurs to me that perhaps I shouldn't have made a mess in the first place. Nah. That makes entirely too much sense.

Finalize DS's class selections for next year. Ex husband is shockingly cooperative. Not sure what to make of this, so I decide to make nothing of it. Enough of my life has been spent (what Byron Katie would call) in the Ex's business -- trying to read his mind, protect myself from him, understand him, prevent his outbursts, change him, control him. He is whatever he is, and I am at so much more peace when I let that be whatever it is. Hard to describe, but wonderful to experience.

Watch stupid TV. Spend way too much money replacing the overload of groceries that DS ate on Saturday. Decide I'm not ready for another week, but what the heck. What choice do I have? Realize that I'm coming down with something.

addendum to sunday...I feel it necessary to note how much I am enjoying my empty nest and my heavenly bed....all I'm sayin

moving on...monday...awake to news of the pope stepping down(!)ahem...no comment...and class this morning is full of returned folks...we kill it... lunch...drive to indy and enjoy lessons...also touched to listen to the presidential award ceremony today for Clinton R. whose last name I cannot spell...such a touching story...small meal and moderate consumption of tequila...a perfectly fine day thankyouverymuch

Monday--skate skate skate. It's more frustrating when you know you COULD do things. Some of it's not being helped by my blades being dull. Someone at the rink may take them up to Kalamazoo for me on Wednesday and have them sharpened. Went to Sprint to get my phone fixed as the battery wasn't charging. Hit PetSmart and the craft stores while waiting. Got home, walked the dogs in the freezing cold wind. Puff wanted to turn back, which is unusual. Maybe he doesn't like the wind, or maybe he's depressed. Of course it's freezing in the house because it always gets cold in the wind. Finally not really itching but the prednisone is never fun.

Wake up to snow and very cold. Have the day off but get up anyway to drive daughter to school...she made puppy eyes at me last night to convince me not to make her walk to the bus-stop. Chop tons and tons of anise, shallots, and garlic for making cioppino for 14 family members later this week. Store resulting chopped veggies in very cold garage because refrigerator is stuffed.

Get mani/pedi as directed by Fascination and Pygmalion. Had toes done in Gettin' Miss Piggy With It color by OPI. What a hoot! Too bad I have to store these lovely toes in my combat boots.

Revisit every grocery store and military commissary in town (well, okay, that might be a SLIGHT exaggeration) to continue buying foodstuff for family and Saturday's party. And it's cold and blowing snow and driving is not fun.

Lessons, where great things are happening.

Truck is out of windshield wiper fluid. Call husband..."Do we have wiper fluid at home?" DH replies, "Of course." Visit more stores, all of which sell wiper fluid, but don't buy any, because "we have some at home." You all see this coming, don't you? Get home, finally, am exhausted. Rummage through garage to find wiper fluid but it's nowhere to be found. DH - "Well, I THOUGHT we had some fluid." Arrgggg! Back out in the cold to the store for fluid.

Home again, where more cooking prep ensues. Spend more than 50 minutes cooking three pounds of bacon, four strips at a time. Wow, bacon grease everywhere. Dog is going crazy.

addendum to sunday...I feel it necessary to note how much I am enjoying my empty nest and my heavenly bed....all I'm sayin

moving on...monday...awake to news of the pope stepping down(!)ahem...no comment...and class this morning is full of returned folks...we kill it... lunch...drive to indy and enjoy lessons...also touched to listen to the presidential award ceremony today for Clinton R. whose last name I cannot spell...such a touching story...small meal and moderate consumption of tequila...a perfectly fine day thankyouverymuch

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I was shocked.

Regardless of whether you're Catholic and regardless of why this decision was made, this is a historic moment. The first retirement of a Pope in 600 years. Attention must be paid.

My best wishes and hopes that the Catholic community finds its way through this transition period as smoothly as possible.

Guy I work with approaches me as I walk into my office in the morning. He has resigned; his last day will be next Friday. He asks that I not give him a going away party. I have mixed feelings about this. I'm sad that he is leaving under circumstances that would make him want to not celebrate. I am flattered that he thinks I would give a party for someone I barely know. Most of all, I am relieved. I had no intention of giving him a party and now I don't have to tell him that.

More of the usual nonsense at work. but it could be worse.

DS has done me proud. Ever since we had that come to Jesus talk a few weeks back, he has been on the case, school work wise. Today is no exception. He went to school early and stayed late for tutorials, made arrangements to take a retest with his AP geography teacher, remembered to take his camera in to get help with adjustments, turned all his homework in on time, turned in his class selection sheet. All in one day. For a kid with ADHD this is nothing short of a miracle. Maybe he's turning a corner in terms of time and self management. Very good.

Work on a couple major personal projects.

ZZzz early.

DS wakes me up with all the noise he makes when he's getting ready for bed.

Yesterday is probably best summed up by one word: cold. It's not that it was particularly cold outside, it's that I wasn't able to warm up at all from the moment I got out of bed until the time DH came to sleep with me and we could spoon (and I could steal his body heat...I call him "my space heater" for a reason). I was cold all day at work, which just is not pleasant. Coffee, soup, nothing helped. Sigh.

The day was mostly spent revising my latest article. It shouldn't have taken nearly as long as it did, but I hate Hate HATE HATE writing. Much dragging of feet. Also drag my feet making a telephone call to someone and writing the official follow-up email. I have really got to get this phone phobia under control...like, yesterday. I've been staring at this item on my to do list for three days now, and I still can't make myself pick up the phone. Sigh. [*Kicks self in butt.* Today, it happens. No excuses]

Also much attempts to provide justification for free training, offered by the organization, which was offered to us months ago, and which is considered "core curriculum" for my job series. Alas, there is zero information about this course online. Try to track down anything for this waste of my time.

Now-boss is tickled pink at the results of my work from last week. This makes me very happy. She is amazed at my ability to turn absolute Excel chicken-scratch into a logical and workable spreadsheet. Um...I have A LOT of experience with this. As in, it's what I was hired to do in my last job, and I did an awesome job of it, from a worse starting point. (And it took me about 6-8 months to do.) If only "making pretty spreadsheets" was a marketable skill. Now-boss is thrilled at a)how organized it is, b)how little you have to update by hand, c)how much everything is linked so that it updates itself. I win. The fact that I can't make the results match my prior boss's calculations...well, I can explain and defend mine. I've got a meeting with her to see if she can defend hers. At the end of the day, I trust my numbers over hers.

Reward myself for completing my article revisions by working more on my spreadsheet. Since having that frank discussion with my now-boss (and since arranging my schedule to have as little face-time with NPC as possible) my attitude is much better. And I'm really enjoying my current projects again. I want to give 150% again. Yay!

The day was mostly spent revising my latest article. It shouldn't have taken nearly as long as it did, but I hate Hate HATE HATE writing. Much dragging of feet. Also drag my feet making a telephone call to someone and writing the official follow-up email. I have really got to get this phone phobia under control...like, yesterday. I've been staring at this item on my to do list for three days now, and I still can't make myself pick up the phone. Sigh. [*Kicks self in butt.* Today, it happens. No excuses].

Click to expand...

Clearly, you don't hate writing as such, but rather the type of writing required by this article. Because I just looked you up, and you have 22,187 posts on DF since joining in 2005. That's a lot of writing!

Is there any way to bring any of the fun, spirited, sometimes sarcastic voice that you have in your recreational writing to your professional writing, or would that be too much of a violation of the norms of your field? In other words, for future articles, can you re-script the task and make it more palatable?

Clearly, you don't hate writing as such, but rather the type of writing required by this article. Because I just looked you up, and you have 22,187 posts on DF since joining in 2005. That's a lot of writing!

Is there any way to bring any of the fun, spirited, sometimes sarcastic voice that you have in your recreational writing to your professional writing, or would that be too much of a violation of the norms of your field? In other words, for future articles, can you re-script the task and make it more palatable?

Click to expand...

I'm just a chatterbox, once I get comfortable. Writing is different.

As for bringing my own voice into my work writing...LOL. Absolutely not. Google my name and my agency, and you'll see what sort of stuff I do. No room for voice at all.

SUNDAY:
Woke up too early. "Vagina Monologues" made the local paper! A photo of me at dress rehearsal (with castmates behind me) accompanies the article. Cool.
Went back to sleep for a couple of hours.

Uploaded and tagged some photos.
Wrote in my diary.

2:30--Left to go pick up Child. (Another of the bummers about having a sick husband: BOTH ~3 hour trips to drop off/pick up Child have to be me. Not a huge problem, but that knocks out a potential workout time.)
4--Pick up Child. Chat with parents.
6--Home. Dinner. Yummy beef burgundy w/noodles.

Lunch break. Work e-mailng updating Dean on FYS recruitment and trying to recruit more FYS sections.
Read scholarly article to prep for class.

12:40--Senior Sem.

2:15 and 2:35 appointment cancel on me and want to re-schedule. (They "forgot" they had other things. Ugh. Re-scheduling means my possible Tuesday workout time will get knocked out.) Run to library and pick up inter-library loan book.

4:30--Home. Oh...forgot to mention that on the way to the parking lot, I run into a French teacher who says "How can you be leaving without a briefcase of papers to grade?" Oh, no you didn't. I explain that I'm coming back in 3 hours to teach a grad class.

Husband informs me that he does not feel well enough to take Child to ice skating. So she will have to miss her lesson, because I have to teach my grad class. On a plus note, he says he will go to the doctor again tomorrow. I mention how I would like him to get a second opinion.

Our stiletto table and book-themed table and chairs arrived! Child and I unpack the stiletto and move it downstairs, then Husband helps me with the book table and chairs...which are really nice.